Living Church of God: Members Forced To Watch Film About Life of Rod

Apostle Malm is reporting on happenings in Living Church of God at the Feast of Tabernacles.  There seems to be a power struggle going on as the top brass attempt to see who can kiss Rod's ass the best.  Also, the LCG membership was subjected to a film on the life of Meredith while at the Feast.  God forbid if you got up and walked out during that!

I wonder if it talked about how Meredith claims he has never committed a major sin since baptism. Or how he made the membership and ministers lives miserable when he was over the ministry.  Did they include Meredith standing up in Tuscon bad mouthing Leona McNair causing him and the WCG to get sued?  Did it include film of Rod screaming and throwing a fit in the Auditorium during the receivership?  Did it include film of HWA removing him from office and banishing him from Pasadena for a year?  Did they include film of him planning to form a splinter cult while the WCG was defending him in court for his loud mouth?  Did they include film when he refused to reimburse hundreds of thousands of dollars that  members loaned him to start Global Church of God after he jumped ship to form Living Church of God?  Did they include film of Raymond and Eve McNair on their knees in front of him asking for forgiveness "with trembling lips?"

This film has to be one of the biggest whitewashes ever produced about a COG minister! But then, most of the Feast films were always propaganda that painted a rosy picture over the face of a deceitful cult that was destroying lives.  LCG Film : The Whole World Will Be Following Us In World Tomorrow

LCG is now in a power struggle over the succession to Rod Meridith and the game of office politics is raging as contenders and hopefuls compete in a “loyalty to Rod” contest.  In the midst of the Feast a film on Rod’s career was aired. I hear that on the Day of Atonement one elder actually preached that the day was all about obeying those ministers above you.

I will give it a day or two before Prophet Thiel gushes about the important witness about the life of Rod that was put on film, that there is no power struggle, and "yes, members are supposed to obey ministers!"

False Prophets: Harold Camping and Rod Meredith

Prophet Thiel has a tirade today against Harold Camping who has once again predicted the end of the world this coming Friday, October 21st.  Thiel at least recognizes that Camping is incorrect and a liar.

According to Harold Camping and other supporters of his Family Radio, Jesus will return on and the world will end on October 21, 2011.  Here is what he wrote in his We are Almost There! book:

Significantly, the number 17 links perfectly to the fact of the rapture because spiritually, the number 17 signifies heaven. Moreover, the number 2 (second month) spiritually identifies with those who have been commissioned to bring the Gospel. Is it not amazing that they will be raptured on the 17th day of the second month? Is that coincidental? We also have learned that the last day of the earth’s existence, October 21, 2011, is the 23rd day of the seventh month of the Biblical calendar. The number 23 normally signifies God’s wrath being poured out. The number 7 (seventh month) signifies the perfect fulfillment of God’s purposes. Could this also be coincidental, that the final completion of God’s punishment on the unsaved occurs in the seventh month on a day that features the number 23, which is a number that completely identifies with God’s wrath, thus signifying God’s perfect wrath on the unsaved?  (p. 61-62).

So, based on his proclamations, the world has only a couple of days to exist. Of course, that is not possible, so in a couple of days, his remaining followers will again see that his prediction was wrong (like they did about his predictions for 1994, and the one for May, 21, 2011)

It is interesting that Thiel can see that Camping is a false prophet but cannot see that Meredith is also a false prophet.  Meredith has had just as many false prophecies over the years and MORE!

But Thiel dances by the false prophecies this way.  He claims Camping is making private interpretations of of prophecy, while LCG's and Meredith's version is "literal."  Camping takes his interpretations as literal also.  I do not understand why Meredith's private interpretation are any different than Camping's private interpretations.

We in the Living Church of God believe:

19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: 20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. (2 Peter 1:19-20, KJV)

Now, Peter is warning that unlike improper human reasoning, prophetic scriptures were not private interpretations. October, 21, 2011 and many of the numbers that have been associated with it are not biblical prophecies, but improper private interpretations of scripture.

While we in believe that we have “a more sure word of prophecy”, it is because we believe that many prophetic scriptures are literal and should often be understood that way. Sadly, those into their own private interpretations, and misunderstand the Bible and the Holy Days, have another view.

Thiel then goes on to say this:

Because he prefers his own imaginations to the truth of the Bible, Harold Camping seems to load one misleading calculation onto other misleading information to get to the wrong answer. He should not be listened to by those that actually believe the Bible. The heavenly signs in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21 have not happened, and they must happen first according to Jesus before He can return.

If this is true then Thiel must stop listening and following Rod Meredith, because Meredith over the decades has used his own imagination to interpret scripture in accordance with his belief on the way things should be.  So far has has struck out every single time he opens his mouth.  Once a liar, always a liar.

Yet, Thiel can call Camping a false prophet and not Meredith:

It remains my view that when Jesus does not come on May 21, 2011, hopefully the warnings to his followers will finally sink in. And some may remember that Jesus said,

11 Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. (Matthew 24:11)

Meredith is a proven and documented false prophet, along with Herbert Armstrong, Gerald Waterhouse, Dean Blackwell and Herman Hoeh.  They have all lied through their teeth for decades.

But there is a grand scheme going on by Satan here.  With Camping and others continually being proven to be false prophets this will have an impact upon the Living Church of God whenever they decide to make an end time prophecy in the future.  Because of all the failed prophets in the past, when people hear LCG/Meredith utter prophecies the world will laugh at LCG and Meredith.  They will be mocked and scoffed at.

Despite false predictions, Jesus will return. And we are to look forward to His return as the Apostle Peter wrote. Jesus will return no earlier than 2018 (and likely later) as certain biblically-required steps have not yet happened (Daniel 9:27; cf. Matthew 24:15,21,29-30).

When God’s true servants proclaim the truth about prophetic events, people are likely to point to false predictions (supposedly, but not really, from the Bible) and scoff, though God still wants people to repent (2 Peter 3:3-9). This scoffing is one of the dangers of the October 21, 2011 date that will soon be proven false.

If Thiel and LCG don't want to be mocked and scoffed at then stop telling prophetic lies as if they were the truth!  Shut down your cult headquarters and stop lying!

Sexualizing War and Armstrongism's Fascination With The Subject

Two of the biggest topics in Armstrongism that continue to pop up are sex and war. The COG's find inspiration in Hebrew Scriptures more than with Jesus.  Of course that pay more attention to Revelation than Jesus. They claim Jesus is coming back as a god seeking revenge on all unrepentant sinners while totally ignore what he actually did and said.  Meredith has sexualized his church to the extreme while reveling in blood, guts and gore of coming conquering armies.

This may explain how the Hebrew Bible seems to sexualize all conquest and wars in the OT

 

The Israeli Woman, by Lesley Hazleton, the Hebrew language  sexualizes war: 

"Gever" is the Hebrew for man, pronounced with the main accent on the first syllable, giving it an aggressive swing. The word also means a cock, or rooster.

But if heroism is purely masculine in Hebrew, weapons and fighting are even more explicitly so. While the sexual connotations of "gever" derive from the cock of the roost, those of weaponry derive directly from the penis.

The Hebrew for penis is "zayin," which is also the word for a weapon. The phrase for Israel's armed forces can thus translate as "an army equipped with penises,'' and the verb meaning "to take up arms" also means "to have sexual intercourse. '

Hat tip to Dennis.

"The Religion Was Soaked With Fear..."

Here is an excerpt from an entry on a "conspiracy" site that is discussing the weirdness of Bobby Fisher.  Someone responds with the following:

American Protestants were fairly enlightened until the time Armstrong came on to the scene, its all gone down hill since. Billy Graham once referred to Herbert Armstrong as "a great man of prophecy". Herbert Armstrong predicted the end of the world would come in 1972 - doesn't pay a prophet to be too specific. We jokingly refer to Armstrong's church as a "non-prophet" organization. 

For me it wasn't a conversion by choice, my father joined the religion when I was very young and I was compelled to go. I did spend about 34 years in the religion, which is not unusual, most Catholics grew up in their religion too, they didn't convert to it. In 1993 I began to see the little man behind the curtain for what he was. Then me and few friends started an internet campaign to change the organization and reveal its corruption. About half the membership left it for more productive lives. Those that remained splintered into dozens of new organizations. The parent organization is now a Karl Barth Calvinist style church. 

I won't go into all the scandals of the religion, if you are interested in the sordid historical facts of its founders they are available at: http://hwarmstrong.com/ on a web site run by a friend of mine. I am not bitter towards the religion, the experience was a mixed bag. I still maintain friendships with those that don't mind having a heretic for a friend. Somethings taught were very good, but the image they presented of God, was frankly a monster. 

The religion was soaked with fear and because the end was always near members never put away money for their children or their retirements. Fear of God, fear of the end times, fear of even your own God given reasoning and common sense were hallmarks of the religion. Armstrong practiced a self-censoring form of mind control and had studied not only Hitler, Marx and Hegel...he says just to know how evil they were. In one letter to co-workers he admits to being an FBI informant during the McCarthy era.

------

One of the lawyers on that case told me the State of California went after the wrong things. They tried to find something wrong with the books. The Church had an air tight accounting system - in fact it was state of the art - it was a real time system that gave their current cash position at any given moment (that was in 1982). It was also pass phrase encrypting on the record level. What the State of California didn't ask was what Herbert W Armstrong did with that money, and all that required was a compliant Treasury who'd sign off on it. If the State came down, he could always have plausible deniability and fire the Treasurer. Those who didn't comply did get fired. I know of two such honest men.

The rest of the comments are here: Rumor Mill News: Bobby Fischer